April 24, 2014

1. Here's Camille Paglia singing the praises of alcohol. Specifically, she's arguing for lowering the drinking age from 21, which I completely agree with, and I even agree with most of what she says about alcohol's superiority to marijuana (because of its long tradition and its enrichment of the great pleasures of food and conversation). But Paglia goes pretty far. ("Exhilaration, ecstasy and communal vision are the gifts of Dionysus, god of wine. Alcohol’s enhancement of direct face-to-face dialogue is precisely what is needed by today’s technologically agile generation....") It's not that she says nothing about drunkenness. (In fact, she stresses the big problem with the 21-year drinking age: It pushes young people into destructive house-party drinking.) In fact, I've got to say, I pretty much agree with everything she says — including the worry that marijuana "saps energy and willpower and can produce physiological feminization in men."

2. Here's Mark Shand, brother of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, dead from a door — dead as a doornail, nailed by a door. He was drinking in the posh bar of the Gramercy Park Hotel, which he had to exit, through a revolving door, to smoke a cigarette — the long history of drinking and smoking having been disrupted by the demand that smokers take their disapproved-of habit outdoors. Having left through the revolving door and smoked, it was time to return to his drink, and he never got back in. Somehow the drinking and smoking and door revolving sent him falling onto the sidewalk, forever separated from that drink, gone for good. Is drinking to blame? The law that separates drinking from smoking? The revolution of the door? One more British death in an American revolution. Whatever happened to American freedom, within which a man with a drink and needing a smoke could stay put in his chair and not have to test his alcohol-laden skills in the dangerous door?

40 comments:

""Exhilaration, ecstasy and communal vision are the gifts of Dionysus, god of wine. Alcohol’s enhancement of direct face-to-face dialogue is precisely what is needed by today’s technologically agile generation...."

Alcohol's facility in improving sociability by reducing inhibitions is well-known. BUT it fails at "Exhilaration, ecstasy and communal vision" because it is also a downer, as CNS depressant.

And then there are drunks. The good kind just go to sleep; the bad kind become mean, sometimes vicious.

1. Hear, hear! Though, rather than dropping the drinking age, perhaps we should make an argument for INCREASING from 18 to 21 the age for those other activities.

2. Dec 2013, Journal of the National Cancer Institute published the most extensive study on environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) that arrives at the conclusion that the impact is not statistically significant. Of course, all those science worshiping liberals that have exposed their inner totalitarian over smoking aren't likely to embrace it.

As for the destructive effects of alcohol, I would add that we live in a society where it is against the law for parents to teach their children to drink responsibility and then we fret and worry about all the kids drinking irresponsibly.

Paglia's completely right as usual. Either the age of majority is 18 or it's 21. End of story, full stop.

Every member of Congress who stands in the way of dropping the drinking age to 18 is nothing more than a puritanical toolbag. For all the Democrats' so called "liberalism" and the Republican's so called "pro-free market" talk, they seem to be able to come together to nanny-state the very people they seem to have no trouble trying as adults and sending off to war. For shame!

People can put them in their houses if they like, but that no one does this testifies to the fact that they are fundamentally anti-human -- the kind of revolting architectural frippery that bloodless modern architects and building commissions love but ordinary flesh and blood humans cannot abide.

Smoking is a remarkably disgusting and pleasurable habit with serious health consequnences.

Smoking added immensely to my drinking experience, and it was while drinking that I fell off the nonsmoking wagon twice before I was able to quit for good.

All that said, I never resented others smoking when I went into a restaurant or bar to eat or drink: why deprive others of the pleasure because I chose not to continue smoking? And, just as the nutrition gurus may be preaching folklore rather than science, I always though the second-hand smoke puritans were over the top with their concerns.

The main benefit of banning smoking indoors is that the smell is not on my clothes when I get home at evening end.

As for the Duchess's brother, I think his number was up, period, and his fall may have had little to do with smoking and a lot to do with a cerebrovascular accident.

Agree with Paglia and AA. Having gone to college (grad & undergrad) in Louisiana when the drinking age was 18 and returned to Louisiana in the last two years of the 18 law and a witness to the collegiate bing-drinking brought on by raising the drinking age to 21, I would argue if ever there was a public policy experiment proved wrong (aside from Prohibition itself, Exhibit#1 ) this is surely exhibit#1A

Libertarianism holds that a proper role for government is to keep people from hurting each other. Given the evidence, I don't think it's "libertarian" to lower or eliminate the minimum drinking age, unless there's a more effective way to reduce drunk driving by teens.

You could probably reduce drunk driving among 29 year olds if you made the drinking age 30.And surely you could reduce drunk driving by older people if it was illegal to drink after the age of 67.Of course we wouldn't do that, because that would be taking away something from an adult. But keeping 18+ from being allowed to legally drink does the same thing, it's just that they are too powerless to change it.

"The National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration has taken the position that the historical evidence unequivocally shows a correlation between raising the drinking age from 18 to 21 and a decrease in traffic-related deaths."

The raising of the drinking age to 21 made the drinking age uniform, removing what had been an incentive for young people to drive across state borders to get to bars where they could drink legally.

You could achieve the same uniformity by making the drinking age 18 everywhere.

Paglia's line on the drinking & driving point is: "The decrease in drunk-driving deaths in recent decades is at least partly attributable to more uniform seat-belt use and a strengthening of DWI penalties."

You reduce drunk driving in teens the same way you reduce drunk driving in adults. The rates have come down significantly over the last 30 years or so. 21-25 year olds still have the highest rate. Shall we raise the legal drinking age to 26?

Our children are allowed, even encouraged, to partake with us at home. Hopefully this will put a damper on the forbidden fruit aspect of drinking once they leave our house. Plus we are able to help them recognize when they are drinking too fast. It is training in self-control, just like with money, food, or the opposite sex. The current laws make it much harder. I would like to enjoy a margarita with my older teens at the Mexican restaurant.

Also, I still have a hard time understanding why 18 yr olds can vote and join the military, but can't have a glass of wine legally. Bah.

I went to college in a Canadian province where the drinking age was 19 - so some folks become legal frosh year and some sophmore. There was still a lot of binge drinking to oblivion, especially among the frosh - certainly no worse than US schools, but not a panacea either. People away from home, and out from parents' thumbs, are going to go a little wild, regardless of the law. I agree that the age should be 18 (or maybe even lower) - you're either an adult or you're not.

My Dad used to say the driking age should be 15, and the driving age 25. He had a point that it's easier to control who gets a car than who gets a bottle of booze. As I get older I tend to think he's right.

BTW, we CAN order a margarita for our teens in public according to state law, but it is like having a glass of wine while pregnant. You had better be ready to deal with the raised eyebrows and questions.

The nanny state's insistence on driving smokers outdoors has fundamentally altered British society by making the Public House a much less desirable place to wile away the hours before closing time. Since the ban on indoor smoking the Pubs have closed at an alarming rate.

Mr. Shand seems to have lived an uncommonly pleasant and privileged life. How many of us have been on Faberge Easter egg hunts and can go to bed secure in the knowledge that we done our utmost to secure the survival of the Asian elephant? Even his untimely death wasn't so bad if you consider he may have been on schedule for a timely stroke.......That whole British Empire thing was done for the benefit of a few thousand county families. I'm glad for their sakes that they got so much happiness and peace of mind out of the experience. I'm not being snarky. Look at what miserable creatures the Politburo and the oligarchs are.

You reduce drunk driving in teens the same way you reduce drunk driving in adults. The rates have come down significantly over the last 30 years or so. 21-25 year olds still have the highest rate. Shall we raise the legal drinking age to 26?"

Yes indeed. We need one consistent age of majority. Obama and the new communist party have decided for health insurance purposes the age of majority is 27. No drivers licenses or drinking or voting or marriage or marriages or military service or entering contracts until age 27.

Looking back, the drinking age being 21 meant that I/we still had to 'sneak' alcohol, and that encourages an I immature mentality that pits you and your friends against a parental world, long after the time has passed to acclimate into that world, that can spill over into other areas of your life.

Coming home after shifts as a bartender in the '70s I saw a lot of drunk driving and its residue. It was horrific out there at 2:15 AM. It's so much better now. There's plenty of credit to go around for that (enforcement, education, dram shop, etc.). Some of the credit though must go to Hollywood. On TV and in film they stigmatized drunk driving. And while I know that their careless depiction of gun violence can have absolutely no impact on real life human behavior, I will gladly give them credit for helping to diminish drunk driving fatalities.